Ex-Biogen R&D Head Williams Thinks Small With Codiak Venture
- Gets $80 million in funding to develop tiny cellular packets
- Company planning pancreatic cancer studies in humans next year
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Doug Williams, the former head of research at Biogen Inc., believes that good things come in small packages. After four years at the biotech giant, he’s moving to a far smaller company to investigate a technology based on tiny containers discharged by cells.
Williams is starting a private company called Codiak BioSciences Inc. with $80 million in funding, the biotechnology firm said in a statement Tuesday. The company is licensing techniques developed by Raghu Kalluri, a professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center, that uses tiny cellular packets, called exosomes, to diagnose and fight disease.